


not new or novel

by vexedcer



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Introspection, References to Drugs, Self-Esteem Issues, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 20:08:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10343664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vexedcer/pseuds/vexedcer
Summary: The idea of his past coming back to haunt him in a professional capacity is not a new or novel one anymore. His life tends to repeat itself in unexpected and imaginative ways.Or: An unpleasant face from Reid's past makes an appearance during a case in Las Vegas.





	

**Author's Note:**

> me? writing a character study-ish piece? impossible.
> 
> this piece is set in season 7, but before "true genius." that doesn't actually make any difference on the story, i don't think, i've just thought of it being that way all the time i was writing it.
> 
> I want to give a quick but no less important shout to my wonderful friend Aleks for looking over this and inflating my ego.

Cases in Las Vegas can be uncomfortable.

On the one hand, it’s nice to be at home - see his old haunts, like the dusty library where he spent his youth reading whatever he could get his hands on. The same old librarian is still there - Mrs. Monroe, with her greying hair and her glasses strung around her neck with a colourful braid. She still recognises him to this day, despite being about two foot taller and a lot older than when he stopped frequenting her library quite as often.

On the other hand, there’s the dusty road to the high school he’s been trying very hard to forget all these years. There’s the fact that his father is literally a car ride away, and always had been. There’s the quiet suburb where his mother’s mind declined, the playground five eighths of a mile from said house where the kids ignored him because he was weird.

Being here, now, a different person than the kid who was the punching bag for teenagers on the verge of adulthood, the one who escaped the dryness of the desert - well. It’s a mixed bag.  
  


It’s hot when they touch down - the dry heat of summer peaking at 92 °F. The team immediately begin to fan themselves with their hands and open the top buttons of their shirts, loosen their ties. Reid finds that he’s still slightly weathered, the heat only making him roll up his shirt sleeves. Crime in July is still a feat in itself, though.

He’s been in this precinct before; they all have. Reid knows the layout of more precincts than he knows his father's face, and that isn't as much as a kick to the teeth it would have been two years ago.

But walking into the building, the A.C. blasting against the heat that threatens outside, he recognises more than he ever wanted to.

When Hotch said that a Detective Johnson had requested the team take the case of three missing teenage boys, he didn't think anything of it. Johnson is the second most common surname in America, after all, and it would be statistically unlikely it was someone he may have known -

But there was also the chance that it was, and it was remiss of Reid to not consider the fact.

So now, he's standing in the middle of his formerly local police precinct, being welcomed in and told about a case that suddenly seems much harder to swallow, by one of his former high school bullies.

Chance can be very cruel.

It isn't until Hotch finally gets to introduce the team, voice practiced over the syllables of his title and name, that the detective finally gains a spark of recognition in his hazel eyes.

“Spencer Reid? God, I didn't recognise you!” he says, with a chuckle, like the whole thing is much funnier than Spencer realises. The team all glance between the two in askance.

“We went to school together. Senior year.” He laughs again, “This kid could have taught the classes better than any of the teachers. Last time I saw him, he was this height.” He puts his hand to just above the joint of his elbow, his bulky frame making the already embarrassing measurement seem even smaller.

It would be a rounded three years from senior year that he'd get his growth spurt. He became a pole overnight, it felt like. All the bottom hems of his old pants would ride above his ankle, and the new ones would always need a belt.

He's doing his best to project an unaffected front, and it's clearly enough fool Johnson, but his team knows him, almost too well. 

Profiling him is easy, and even if there's the (nearly always) unspoken rule against inter-team profiling, it is second nature to them and sometimes it slips past their carefully constructed walls unwelcome.

He knows he reeks of abandonment and self-esteem issues, and when you factor in his homelife, his IQ and his social awkwardness, it's not hard to guess (or hypothesize, he corrects himself, because it's based on information at hand rather than conjecture) he was bullied severely. 

Hell, he's had to say it out loud enough.

So when his team speak to the detective in a slightly more professional (or cold) manner, Reid knows the team are slipping into a protective mindset.

Being the youngest agent, having literally matured in front of the eyes of his team, his naivety or innocence or ignorance of some things, he understands why they do this. 

It doesn't mean he has to like it, or appreciate it. He's a grown man. He can take care of himself.

(He refuses to let himself think about how he still sticks post-it notes at his coffee pot reminding him to eat a full meal, or that he sat in the dark of his bedroom closet a week and a half ago to help stifle the now-rare drug cravings.)

Spencer wonders if the team has stopped seeing him as the lanky kid who rose like a star through the Academy at twenty years old, a brain like a supercomputer and a mouth like a broken faucet. 

The idea of his past coming back to haunt him in a professional capacity is not a new or novel one anymore. His life tends to repeat itself in unexpected and imaginative ways.   
  


The case takes all of their attention, when another boy goes missing, and then another. The unsub is escalating, and they still don't know what they're doing with the boys.

The conference room where they've set up is blessedly quiet, just him working over a map of the area (that he doesn't really need, but it'll be easier for the team to understand this way) and Morgan who’s staring at the boards around them.

Morgan wants to say something. Reid knows he does; what he wants to ask.

“It wasn’t him,” Reid says quietly. He sees Morgan’s head turn towards him in his peripherals. “He didn’t tie me to the goal post.”

Morgan’s voice is sour when he replies. “But was he there that night? Did he try and stop it?” Reid doesn’t answer. 

It’s the crowd that haunted him - still haunts him sometimes. Some nightmares don’t go away completely, they just get replaced. And sometimes they bubble up from the depths of your subconscious just to mess with you.

The jeering voices of the crowd echo inside his head and he pushes the memory away in order to speak. “I’m not a kid anymore. I can take care of myself and I don’t need to be protected from my past.”

Morgan lets out an exasperated breath and sits down on the chair opposite him. “It’s not about your past, Reid. It’s about your present. We protect you because we’re not just your team. We’re family, kid, and you ain’t getting rid of us.”

He keeps his head down, looking at the map. His friend sighs and leans back in his seat. “What they did could be considered sexual assault.”

“Actually, it would only amount to indecent exposure under Nevada law, but if someone was found guilty, they could sentenced to 364 days in jail and fined up to $2,000. They may also be forced to register as a sex offender.”

“Reid -” he starts, but then softens his voice, “Spencer. As much as I’d like the bastards to pay for what they did, I’m not talking about the law here. I just want to know that you’re alright. I’m sure Hotch would take you off the case if -” 

Morgan’s phone rings.

It’s playing the song Spencer has now begun to associate with Garcia. He looks at Reid for a second, like he’s considering letting the phone call go to voicemail and continuing the conversation, but ultimately the importance of the case slips back into focus, takes front and centre in Morgan’s mind.

“Hey, Baby Girl, hold up a second,” He removes the cell from his ear, fingers moving over the screen before placing it down on the table. “Reid’s here too, what you got for me?”

 

Maybe Morgan’s right; it  _ doesn’t _ matter that Johnson - or Tyler, as Spencer knew him then - wasn’t the one to haul him bodily to the football field. It feels like, even if it was only one set of hands to tie him to the goal - and he doesn’t know who they belong to, after all these years, because he couldn’t see through the tears - it feels like everyone’s hands were on him; Harper’s, Alexa’s, Tyler’s. Maybe they should all be blamed.

Maybe they’re all responsible.

 

The case, of course, sweeps them up again. Their eye of the storm conversation gets put on the backburner as new leads are followed, and no one else tries their hand at making him talk about what’s happening inside his head.

It reminds Spencer of the months after the shack, how everyone walked on eggshells like he was one wrong word away from a breakdown. Being scared he was going to lose his job and friends, after he worked his way up from the dusty Nevada plains.

The others obviously thought Gideon responsible for helping him, but his former mentor left him to drown in addiction for weeks before he sat across from him in a dirty jazz club in New Orleans giving him a cryptic ultimatum, his former best friend providing the soundtrack for what turned out to be a pivotal point in his life.

He doesn’t blame the team; acknowledging it formally would mean him losing his job, which would just send him into a spiral. It had stung then, to flounder like he did and have his friends watch. But he has perspective now, he thinks, a level of objectivity. They were scared too.

He’s long since forgiven his family.

 

He catches JJ and Prentiss glancing furtively between him and each other, faces marred with concern, obviously feeling helpless. They speak to each other with their eyes and abortive gestures in the way he knows will always be a foreign language to him. 

They’re still scared. He thinks they alway will be.

 

The case wraps up in a late-night raid, Garcia’s magic cracking the case with facial recognition on incredibly grainy CCTV footage from a gas station two miles outside of the city limits. Spencer may not quite understand what she does and how she does it, but he has a lot of respect for her and her skills.

The boys are relatively fine, or as fine as they can be after being locked in an abandoned basement for a week. They'll probably need lots of counselling to remove the burning smell that came from the rusted furnace from their brains.

Although, he still smells phantom burning fish guts sometimes when the case has involved too much corrupted religion to be bearable.

The smells never quite leave you. 

 

It’s 2am when Hotch finally corners him in the station. He’s just as smooth and practiced as all of his movements ever seem to be - sure, right, even into the early morning fueled on coffee and adrenaline. 

There’s a brief moment where Spencer is jealous of how confident Hotch is, like he’s not constantly battling his limbs to make them work. But on the other hand, he doesn’t know if he could be so emotionless. Emotions are the mighty beasts he’s battled all his life, and to oppress them into submission the way Hotch has been able to seems as unreachable as passing as  _ normal _ .

(Normal, of course he knows objectively in his vast mind, is subjective. It doesn’t make the feeling go away.)

“If you want to take time off to visit your mom, that can be arranged,” he says, like he’s not giving Reid a chance to take cover and hide, like he’s following up on a lead his subordinate proposed. The case, of course, is over, so the lie is superficial.

He doesn’t have the energy to keep up the act; he’s been working a case that bothers him, in a city that fits like an ill-fitting shoe, just slightly too big, or too small - he can’t tell which - dealing with a brain that’s dredging up every awful experience he ever had in high school.

He looks at Hotch, sees as much care as ever passes the cool steel of his eyes, and let’s his shoulders slump. “I’d rather just go home,” he admits quietly, not thinking about how he’s letting his mother down.

She doesn’t even know he’s here, and she might not be in a mental state well-enough to even recognise him. She doesn’t know, and might not even understand, that he’s in his home state for the first time in far too long, and didn’t drop by to see her.

Life just kept happening. There was the headaches, Emily, then Emily  _ again - _ he hasn’t had a minute to breath this last while - year, whatever. He still writes.

Hotch looks over him with concern, the emotion bleeding somehow from his pores because his expression doesn’t change a fraction from what Spencer can tell. When he speaks again, his voice is softer. It’s how he speaks to Jack.

“I know that you often shut us out, Reid,” he says, voice quiet and brow pinching, “And while you have every right to your own privacy, our concern doesn’t mean we think you can’t do your job.”

Spencer looks down at his shoes. They need to be cleaned - the unsub’s lair had been dusty and the lines of his shoes are caked in grime. 

“You’re not the person you were when you joined the BAU, and I know we all forget that from time to time. As your superior -” Reid represses a flinch, “- I could assign you leave without your say, but as your friend -” and Hotch’s voice drops into a mix of the paternal softness and the serious intention, “- I want you to take it of your own accord.”

Reid’s hands move over each other, pulling the length of his fingers in a nervous move. He considers the proposal. Putting in for leave himself would save face, even if he’s tired of the tight rope walk of his facade. He takes a deep breathe.

“The paperwork -”

“The paperwork can wait, Spencer.”

He nods a jerky bob of his head, unsure and small. “Hotch,” he starts, “Can you - tell the others to back off?” His hands are still wringing themselves at about stomach height, subtle to everyone but a profiler.

Hotch tips his head in agreement, and then strides away with that same sure walk, graceful yet assertive.

 

They end up flying home at 3:30am, rather than waiting until morning. Hotch said something about it being for bureaucratic reasons, but Spencer zoned out after that. 

The atmosphere is heavy with exhaustion on the jet. Spencer takes a single seat facing away from the team and watches the lights miles below bleed into each other as they fly towards home.

Johnson didn’t even acknowledge the incident. He didn’t try to apologise, and neither did he try and play it off for a laugh. Spencer didn’t expect him to - the detective has a kind of deflecting charm, teeth like razors. He doesn’t admit to his faults, Spencer could tell from the way he held himself, the angle of his chin, how he spoke to the beat cops.

It’s probably better this way. He doesn’t want insincere apologies, nor does he want his trauma rekindled by someone who doesn’t live through his nightmares for the punchline of the joke to be him.

He’s tired.

**Author's Note:**

> a few things;
> 
> this story involved a lot of haphazard research, so if something like the Nevada law is wrong ,,, thats why.
> 
> I wrote this with the intent of making it EXPLICIT that spencer is autistic, but I failed to do so, so here it is: spencer reid is autistic in this story (and every story ever, and every episode ever) so don't go forgetting or ignoring that.
> 
> i also didnt actually rewatch any eps in writing this, only like half of morgan and reid's convo in elephants memory once, so again if somethings wrong that is why.
> 
> lastly!! thank u so much for reading


End file.
